Designing new learning experiences with GenAI
Our Learning Manager, Sarah Bhatia reflects on developing our new Working with GenAI course, and how she changed her mind after experimenting more with GenAI tools.
From excitement to skepticism to an open mind
I was genuinely excited when ChatGPT and other early GenAI tools first came out a few years ago. But after using them for a while, I became skeptical. Having lived and worked in Silicon Valley, I’ve seen lots of tech entrepreneurs promising to change the world. There was a lot of hype about GenAI, but I did not see how it could help people.
That changed when we began developing the new Content Design Academy. I realised I needed to look at GenAI with a new perspective. As with content design, I wanted to approach it with an open and experimental mindset.
I started with basic prompts. Working alongside my teammates Rich Prowse and Nia Campbell, we gradually asked GenAI to do more complex tasks. One breakthrough came when we created a learning storyboard using GenAI—a task that had always been detailed and time-consuming. We then found we could adapt that storyboard for other materials, speeding up our drafting process.
Building on a foundation of research
This experimentation drew on something I've loved since my student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the university’s main research library, I worked on various projects, from cataloguing archival materials to doing online research for a digital library.
When I started exploring GenAI for research, I was excited to discover what a great research partner it could be. For our Working with GenAI course, I combined traditional research methods with the GenAI tool Claude to help build our knowledge stack. This database of source materials became the foundation for the information and exercises in our course.
Understanding the broader landscape
What we discovered went beyond working faster. GenAI is becoming important across government departments, businesses, and non-profits. Like the early internet days, we're all figuring out the expanse of what’s possible, as well as the limits.
Organisations everywhere are wrestling with ethical and environmental questions about GenAI. We kept this in mind when designing the Academy, focusing on practical skills people could actually use at work rather than just theory. And taking a balanced approach to help people understand the risks as well as the benefits.
As we developed exercises, we experimented constantly. Image generation was especially interesting to me—I hadn't explored it much before. Using the Dove Real Beauty Playbook, we created exercises exploring biases in AI-generated content. We also looked at how to use GenAI to check for bias and accessibility in content.
Centering ethics and human needs
Throughout this process, I kept returning to the importance of balancing enthusiasm for GenAI with critical thinking. UNESCO's human rights approach to AI really spoke to me. I've always admired UNESCO—they take a universal view to setting standards. Their framework aligns beautifully with content design's human-centered principles.
We studied case studies and frameworks from different types of organisations, finding examples of successes and failures. This helped us show that there’s no single approach to working with GenAI. Organisations need to explore and find what works best for them.
An invitation to explore
If you're a content professional wondering about GenAI, I encourage you to question it and look at it critically. But stay open and curious too–it might surprise you.
The range of applications is fascinating. I’ve recently been learning about a Buddhist studies chatbot and a tool that helps historians decipher ancient texts. Each example shows an exciting possibility for GenAI.
Start with simple tasks. Experiment. Test things out. Share discoveries with your teammates. GenAI offers a chance to rethink how we create, design and approach our work. But only if we approach it thoughtfully—using our skills to shape how this technology serves humans.
The conversation about GenAI is just beginning. Join in with your questions and skepticism. Let's figure out together what this means for our work and the people we serve.
Learn more about the Working with GenAI course